NECHIN, belgium — The last time a big star lit up this sleepy village of potato fields and pastures was in 1667, when the Sun King, Louis XIV of France, stopped by for the day, but even he might not have created the commotion caused by Gerard Depardieu.

The celebrated actor and France’s most reviled tax exile has been a resident here since a visit to the mayor’s office Dec. 7.

“I thought it was a joke,” said the mayor, Daniel Senesael, recalling his disbelief when he was first told that Depardieu intended to leave his mansion in Paris and move to Nechin, a rural settlement in Belgium with 2,200 people.

“Let’s be honest: This is not Las Vegas,” Senesael said.

For Depardieu, and scores of wealthy French citizens who already live here, however, Nechin does have one seductive asset: It is beyond the reach of the French tax authorities but so close to France that an unmarked border running through the village puts the gardens of some properties in France and adjoining houses in Belgium.

Belgium has higher income taxes for most people than in much of Europe, but the country is much easier on the rich than France.

There, the government of President Francois Hollande, who has pledged to squeeze the rich in an attempt to help reduce France’s budget deficit, has announced a “temporary supertax” of 75 percent on annual incomes of more than 1 million euros, or about $1.3 million.

France’s Constitutional Council on Saturday declared the tax unconstitutional.

France also has a “wealth tax” on assets worth more than $1.7 million, as well as far higher taxes on capital gains and inheritance.

In an angry open letter to France’s prime minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault, Depardieu, 64, said he was renouncing his French citizenship and leaving, and said he had paid $192 million in taxes over 45 years and complained that the state this year took 85 percent of his income.

“If I were in his shoes, I would do exactly the same thing and leave,” said Philippe Vandenhemel, the owner of a garage just outside Nechin that sells and repairs imported American cars and was visited several times by Depardieu, who is formally registered as “domiciled” in Nechin.

He added that “we Belgians are not jealous and don’t mind people getting rich.”

“Jealousy is France’s national disease,” he said.

Related news

Millionaire tax rate struck down • PARIS — France’s Constitutional Council ruled Saturday that an emblematic new law that imposes a 75 percent tax rate on earnings above $1.3 million is unconstitutional.

The ruling was based on technical grounds, and President Francois Hollande’s government pledged to make the necessary adjustments. But Hollande had made the 75 percent rate an anti-rich symbol during his presidential campaign. As a result, the council’s judgment was seen as an embarrassing setback.

The measure, called the “exceptional solidarity contribution,” scheduled to last two years, was denounced by Hollande’s conservative opponents as the trademark of a confiscatory tax policy that they said is smothering entrepreneurial spirit in France.

The Constitutional Council said that the temporary 75 percent rate for income over one million euros, or $1.3 million, violated the constitution because it was calculated strictly on individual income instead of income by household, as is the rule for income tax assessments in France. The Washington Post